Murderous Prose

Copyright © 2008, Steven E. Houchin

It seems I just can't get enough of author Raymond Chandler (1888-1959). His portrayal of the hard-bitten, working class Private Dick may only be matched by his contemporary, Dashiell Hammett, with his starring ace detective Sam Spade.

Chandler is famous for his gritty detective protagonist Philip Marlowe, who prowls the streets and environs of 1930's and 1940's Los Angeles, richly transporting the reader headlong into that era. Two of his most famous Marlowe novels, Farewell, My Lovely (1940) and The Big Sleep (1939), were also successful movies.

I'm currently reading Chandler's The Simple Art of Murder (Vintage Books, 1988), which begins with an essay - often scathingly critical - on the state of the "detective story", and his disdain for its many practitioners. He says, "The average detective story is probably no worse than the average novel, but you never see the average novel. It doesn't get published." The remainder of the book is a series of - you guessed it - short detective stories.

What amazes me most about Chandler is his stunning descriptive phrases. For example, his story Spanish Blood begins:

"Big John Masters was large, fat and oily. He had sleek blue jowls and very thick fingers on which the knuckles were dimples."

Or, the first paragraph of I'll Be Waiting:

"... Carl, the night porter, turned down the last of three table lamps in the main lobby ... The blue carpet darkened a shade or two and the walls drew back into remoteness. The chairs filled with shadowy loungers. In the corners were memories like cobwebs."

Wow!

Meet Your Perpetual Agent

Copyright © 2008, Steven E. Houchin

So, you’ve finally been published, but your agent has lost interest in you, or you’re not getting along. It’s time to find a new agent, someone you like, who is enthusiastic about your career potential. So, you terminate your old agency agreement. Your new agent can now aggressively move forward selling your book’s rights into new markets, right? Well ... maybe not. You may be hampered by “The Interminable Agency Clause”.

An Interminable Agency Clause, also known as an “Interminable Rights Clause” or a “Perpetual Agency Clause”, essentially gives your old, unloved agent all rights to represent your book as long as the book’s copyright is in effect. That’s your lifetime plus 70 years - a very long time - and a big problem. Normally, the agent would only have rights during the life of a publishing contract. So, if your publisher drops your book, your new agent can’t re-sell it to a new publisher because your old agent has perpetual representation rights. Even if your old agent agrees to cede representation to your new agent, he can still demand commissions for any new sales.

Many professional writers groups warn against this practice. Even if you love your agent, agencies that own the rights can change personnel or be sold, leaving you out in the cold with strangers.

My main source for this is novelist Victoria Strauss’ blog entry at:
http://accrispin.blogspot.com/2007/12/victoria-strauss-interminable-agency.html

The Interminable Agency Clause: don’t let it happen to you!

In the Dark During Bowl Week

Copyright © 2007, Steven E. Houchin. All rights reserved.
( Originally written 27 December 2007 )

Okay, I admit it. My time spent writing has been almost non-existent during the holidays. I’m not one of those “up at 4 a.m. and write for three hours” kind of superheroes you read about in author interviews. It’s Christmas, after all, with shopping, wrapping, cards, sugary cookies (zzzz…), and a slippery, snowy drive across the state and back. Am I expected to pour out paragraphs while creeping across the pass in second gear at 10 mph?

Oh, and now it’s Bowl Week. How am I supposed to work on deep character development when BYU and UCLA come down to a last second, failed, chip-shot field goal? Or when Boise State ties East Carolina on a miracle fumble recovery with 90 seconds left, only to lose by a field goal with zero left on the clock? I’M ONLY HUMAN!

Maybe it’s the dark, short, gloomy days. Yeah, that must be it. The weather sapped my creative energy and drowned me in winter’s funk. It raps at my window with big wet drops and whipsaws my trees more than I think they can stand. Can I really write when a huge cedar may crash into my house at any minute? Plus, there’s moss spreading all across my yard….

Then I look at the schedule of literary contests coming up in the new year. A whole bunch have January and February deadlines, and me with nothing to submit. So, do I quickly slap something together, throw it into the pile, and hope that my possible competitors were ... let’s see ... watching BOWL GAMES? I’d really hate to just write off (so to speak) these early 2008 contests.

Oh, Oregon State and Maryland are about to kick off. Let’s see, if I just get up tomorrow morning at 4 a.m....

I'm In a Blue, Blue Subjunctive Mood

Copyright © 2007, Steven E. Houchin. All rights reserved.
( Originally written 13 December 2007 )

I recently had my Linear Descent manuscript critiqued. A number of my sentences were marked for incorrect grammar. The problem involved use of the word “was” when “were” was the correct usage. I had descended into a bad subjunctive mood. Now, I must admit, I do often get moody, but I never realized my subjunctiveness was so out of whack.

Usually, the use of these words is obvious. For example: “The clown was squeezed into the tiny car”, versus “The clowns were squeezed into the tiny car”. This is a singular versus plural past-tense usage, where the proper word to use must match the subject “clown(s)”. Although, I do sometimes have trouble with phrases that seem ambiguous, such as “The pair was up to no good”, versus “The pair were up to no good”. Hmmm....

And then there are phrases that describe situations that depend on probability or likelihood, such as “If I was a rich man ...”. However, “was” is grammatically wrong. The correct phrase is “If I were a rich man...”, even though “I” is singular. Why?

This is an example of a subjunctive clause. A verb is in the subjunctive mood when it expresses a condition which is doubtful or not factual. In this example, I am not really rich, so the verb “was” - normally the singular past tense of the verb “to be” - is really in subjunctive tense. In English, the subjunctive past-tense of “to be” is “were”, not “was”, and the plurality of the subject “I” is irrelevant. “If we were rich men...” uses the same word, even though the singular “I” has changed to the plural “we”. It is still subjunctive mood.

So, as I slog through my latest manuscript looking for occurrences of this error, my mood quickly turns blue, blue, blue.

Puzzled

Copyright © 2007, Steven E. Houchin. All rights reserved.

( Originally written 11 November 2007 )

Having nothing better to do one evening, I watched a television program on people who take part in an annual crossword puzzle competition. The speed with which these contestants whizzed through them was truly amazing. During the program, it showed bits and pieces of clever clues and their answers. Now, I’m not interested in expanding my small universe of skills to include competitive puzzle solver, but it got me thinking whether tackling the daily newspaper’s crossword puzzle might prove useful for a writer. As writers, we are constantly confronted with the need to find different ways to say the same thing in order to avoid word repetition. For many puzzle clues, this kind of thinking is exactly what is required. For example:

• “Promised to give up” -- Swore Off
• “With wisdom” -- Sagely
• “Cast a spell over” -- Enchanted

Beyond that, you can just plain learn new things you never knew before.

• “Brine-cured cheeses” -- Fetas
• “La Vie en Rose singer” -- Piaf
• “City on the Rhone” -- Lyons

So, if I were to do the crossword every day, would it make the words, phrases, and cultural references in my writing richer and more varied? Other than taking up a little bit of time (they get harder through the week), it seems as though it might. Who knows, it may even help with those frustrating moments when I get stuck, grasping for ideas on how to move the story forward. Putting on my hat as an engineer, though, I doubt there is any effective way to actually measure any benefit from doing this unless, of course, my story’s plot would turn nicely on some brine-cured cheeses.

So, Ya Wanna Get Published?

Copyright © 2007, Steven E. Houchin
( Originally written 6 December 2007 )

Last month I heard new local author speak at Third Place Books. In addition to telling us about his novel, he spoke bitterly about the process of getting published. His experience was so frustrating that he stated he has no desire to write another book.

After dozens and dozens of rejections, he put the book away for a few years. It was ultimately published due to a chance meeting with a book critic who spoke at the UW bookstore. The critic read his manuscript and put him in touch with someone he knew in the publishing business. Eventually, the author signed with a small, on-demand publisher who put out his book in paperback. “On-demand” means that the publisher can print his book in units of ones and twos if needed, rather than traditional publishers who must print thousands at a time. Getting published had taken five long years, which he was told is about average.

With book in hand, he visited a local Barnes & Noble, ready with his best speech to convince them to stock his book. The B&N person turned to the inside back page and examined the bar code, then promptly told him they couldn’t accept it. The code contains an identifier that shows it was print-on-demand, and they have a corporate policy to not handle them. Same story with Borders. Why? Because they can’t return the unsold extras to on-demand publishers, who don’t carry inventory. So, to market his book, he can only count on independent bookstores and online sellers.

I suppose this is something else we need to add to our list of Bewares for the industry.

Web Musings #2 - A Tangled Web

Copyright © 2007, Steven E. Houchin
( Originally written 21 November 2007 )

While writing my first two novels, I did a lot of geographical and historical research using the World Wide Web. A couple of incidents served as a reminder how cautious and skeptical one must be when dealing with online information.

In the first incident, I had scoured the Web for the names and descriptions of various county sheriffs who held office during 1889. After I found them, I wrote their characters into my story. But I wanted to know more about them. So, little by little, I continued to dig. In three out of five counties, I ran into a troubling problem: new sources named a totally different person as sheriff for that time. I was right back at the beginning. Who really was the sheriff? I would think it ought to be a simple, knowable fact. But, in today’s world, there are facts... and then there’s The Web.

I figured that local brick and mortar libraries in each individual county must have the answer. But, did I really want to drive down to Tacoma or fly to Duluth, Minnesota? What I discovered instead was that many libraries have an e-mail address for their reference librarian. So, I sent messages explaining my dilemma. Both Tacoma and the Duluth were incredibly helpful, quickly looking up old records and replying with specific information -- no charge. Sometimes, we exchanged rapid e-mails back and forth, sorting through facts to find the right answer. I think the researchers may have become as curious as me. However, not all libraries are so open and helpful over the Internet. For example, Spokane’s library requires you to have one of their library cards before you can submit a question. So, I went there in person, which is actually the best option if you have the time or are already in the area.

Once I found the truth, there remained the problem of the inaccurate websites. I could just ignore them, but then I’d feel like a heel. So, I decided to spend time researching who to contact to clean up the online mess. In one case, the offending party was our own Secretary of State’s office, whose online biography of our second Secretary of State, who had been Pierce County Sheriff in 1889, contained numerous inaccuracies. Another offender was the Sheriff’s Department of St. Louis County, Minnesota, whose own list of sheriffs for the 1880’s was wrong. In both cases, I contacted them with my facts. Neither has yet completely fixed their sites.

Another incident involved geographic research. In my first book, I placed the law offices of one character, who is a sleazy attorney, in a particular historic building in downtown Pittsburgh. Recently, while doing some additional research, I discovered that the building had converted to condominiums a few years ago. Ooops! I changed my story to use a fictitious office building.

The bottom line is, if you can’t have your boots on the ground where your story takes place, it’s not too hard to get into trouble with information gleaned exclusively from the Web.